Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems offer large increases in throughput due to their ability to support multiple parallel data streams that are each transmitted from different antennas. In the most general form, MIMO transmissions employ a number of parallel spatial streams that are independently FEC encoded. Each stream is then mapped to one or more spatial transmission layers. Mapping to multiple antennas can be done by introducing a linear transformation from the transmission layers to the physical antennas. The number of spatial transmission layers is called the rank of transmission, and the layers are mapped to the real transmit antennas. This mapping is typically accomplished by linearly combining the layer signals to obtain the actual transmit signals. This operation is also termed pre-coding. Although current MIMO communications offer advantages over single antenna systems, further improvements would prove beneficial in the art.